Bees play a vital role in the reproduction of plants with entomophilous pollination. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has estimated that on 100 species of plants that provide 90% of food worldwide, 71 are associated with the bee pollination. Over the last fifty years, the agricultural production, independent of insect pollination, has doubled and agricultural production that requires pollination of insects has increased fourfold, indicating that world agriculture has become more pollinator-dependent. Both the FAO and other independent research organizations in the industry have predicted that the economic value of pollination worldwide agriculture and related sectors is of the order of 180 billion U.S. dollars, of which 32 billion dollars just in the United States. Indeed it is difficult to overstate the role of bees in the commercial production of food.
Honey bees, Apis mellifera, are the premier pollinator for the majority of agricultural crops that require pollination. Honey bee health has recently declined across the US due to a number of factors including increasing urbanization and loss of biodiversity, particularly wildflower meadows and “weeds” that provided high quality bee forage, poor nutrition and malnutrition of bees, immunodeficiencies, microbial pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa, both lethal and sub-lethal exposure to pesticides including insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, beekeeper applied miticides and antibiotics, parasitic mites (Varroa destructor and V. jacobsoni mites and Acarapis woodi tracheal mites), the fungi Nosema ceranae and N. apis, heavy metals, toxic pollutants, natural plant toxins, biting insects, selective breeding in apiculture and loss of genetic diversity, climate change and increased environmental stresses from drought and cold snaps, and combinations of these factors. Of particular growing concern is a syndrome called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is now approaching 40% colony loss with many beekeepers; large farms, where up to 84,000 beehives are kept in one location, CCD can claim more than 60%. More than ⅓ of all the non-animal food Americans consume is dependent upon pollination from bees. Should this upward trend in bee colony losses continue, the economic and societal expenses could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The main symptoms of CCD are the disappearance of the worker class (resulting in very few or no adult “worker” bees in the hive), a live queen and few to no dead bees on the ground around the colony. Often there is still honey in the hive, immature capped brood bees are present (bees will not normally abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched) and the hive contains honey and bee pollen that was not immediately robbed by neighboring bees. The hive is also slow to be robbed by colony pests such as wax moths or small hive beetles. Varroa mites, a virus-transmitting parasite of honey bees, have frequently been found in hives hit by CCD. Collapsing colonies typically do not have enough bees to maintain colony brood and have workers that consist of younger adult bees; the progression of symptoms may be rapid or slow (up to two years). The colony may have ample food stores and be reluctant to eat food provided by the beekeeper. See, for example, Honey Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder, United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service docid=15572 (2013).
The reasons for increasing colony collapse are complex and appear to be the result of multiple factors. Suggested causes include increasing urbanization and loss of biodiversity, particularly wildflower meadows and “weeds” that provided high quality bee forage, poor nutrition and malnutrition, immunodeficiencies, microbial pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa, both lethal and sub-lethal exposure to pesticides including insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, beekeeper applied miticides and antibiotics, parasitic mites (Varroa destructor and V. jacobsoni mites and Acarapis woodi tracheal mites), the fungi Nosema ceranae and N. apis, heavy metals, toxic pollutants, natural plant toxins, biting insects, selective breeding in apiculture and loss of genetic diversity, climate change and increased environmental stresses from drought and cold snaps, and combinations of these factors. Research suggests that honey bee diets, parasites, diseases and multiple pesticides interact to have stronger negative effects on managed honey bee colonies, while nutritional limitation and exposure to sublethal doses of pesticides, in particular, may alter susceptibility to or the severity of bee parasites and pathogens.
At present there are not any known treatments or specific solutions for the prevention and treatment of Colony Collapse Disorder, nor methods, techniques or procedures which the beekeeper can put in place with a reasonable expectation of success to protect his hives from the same. In the light of the foregoing, the present invention has the aim of providing a method for the prevention of Colony Collapse Disease or other damage to bees and bee colonies related to the ingestion or exposure to pesticides.